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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Alpha 5 - MOAR!...

UNDEAD MODE
You can pick all the standard undead models, except rats - skeletons are silly enough to play.
Keep in mind you have no skills and you can transform as NPC zombies do by killing people.

REINCARNATION - OPTIONS
You can set options related to how reincarnation.

Disabling rats reincarnation is handy, as there are a lot of rats and they are quite silly to play. So you won't get spammed with them as possible avatars.
Max numbers of reincarnations is a way to limit yourself or disable this altogether with setting it to zero.
Each reincarnation will decrease the difficulty used for computing for this character. Eg: your first life will be 100% difficulty, but if you reincarnate the next one will start at 0 points and score only 50% of base points. This is a way to avoid some stupid cheating, like using past lives to make the following ones easier and scoring big.

REINCARNATION - CHOOSING AN AVATAR
When you die you get a set of typical avatar selected for you to reincarnate in.
Here I played survivor Tony Austin. He got killed by a zombie, got zombified in the process and had a follower alive at that time.
So I get the full set of candidate avatars to choose from.

You can image fun play mode and challenges if you restrict yourself to a set of options:

Succession game : take control of your followers as your band members die horribly one by one.

Killer game : take control of your killer.

Till the Last Survivor : take control of a survivor, you loose the game if there are no one available, which could happen.

The Equalizer : take control of the opposite side and try to do your best for them.

Just ideas ;)

I intended to allow the player to reincarnate anywhere in the world but it is not practical. I would have to simulate the whole world which would not be a sane thing to do. So instead it is just limited to the district you were in.

Also, I asked in the last post, but since this one will be getting moar attention now...

Are you willing to divulge some plans for what "winning" will entail? Personally I like the achievement system, because it means you can set some goals ,but there is no direct storyline and no direct "end" to the game. I think the game gains a huge advantage from essentially having to fight a never-ending battle for survival. Adds a sort of realism too it, because in a zombie apocalypse you'd never be able to "win" at anything really :P. Just my thoughts.

I am liking the new features The freedom your giving us in the game is great! Once you have the gameplay up to a certain point you should work on some more story and backround In which I can help if you need it I like writing post apocalyptic fiction.

Hopefully the prisoners in the police station will be changed from "Survivor" to "Prisoner" to prevent the player from reincarnating in a closed jail cell; or to make the jail cells open automatically when you do spawn behind the jail door.It'd also be interesting if you could reincarnate as Jason Myers or other "criminal" survivors when the ability to attack other survivors gets put in. Spawning as an axe murderer? In a zombie survival game? Yes please!

attack undead as undead: No.reinc as prisonner: Can happen. Consider that bad karma and reach for the suicide key. Remember you have some choices to avoid that.

Reincarnation avatars---------------------You can get the chance to reincarnate as *anyone*, except the special prisonner. *Anyone* means *anyone*. All the actors you see in the game. The special prisonner is the only forbidden reincarnation for plot reasons.I might forbid some other reincs if they prove to be unworkable or cause problems. That was my initial intent, but I'd prefer not to and give freedoom. So far I'm testing various reincarnations and it works and its fun.

Winning & plot--------------Winning does not mean ending the game. You would still be able to continue playing.There's a story in the back of my head, its just one of those things I have to get implemented.I will keep the game open-ended, the player will not be forced to follow the plot.

By the way, I've noticed that I seem to lose my armor when loading up a game. At first I thought it was something I was doing, like dropping it somehow and forgetting, but it's happened several times. It's annoying to keep losing army armor :(

I really enjoy the concept of this game, but I expected game being far more reliant on survival.I've spent about 35 day in some cellar, eating stolen cans with food just to find out, that there is nothing like "being saved" by US Government or overcome this zombie invason by time. All I can do is going around and shot zombies to eternity, like if humanity was neverending source of living for zombies. Not my cup of tea.

I can understand that. There's a plot but its a work in progress, like other stuff, and is not forced on the player. Check the prison.Anyway the game will still mostly be open-ended even when the plot will be completed. Some people will like that, some people won't. That's ok.

I think the open-ended nature of the game is really good. I mean, most zombie apocalypse narratives end with the realization that the army isn't going to swoop in and save you. At best there may be some sort of safe construct.

Also, the concept of never-ending gameplay is a classic video game trope, especially for games with point based score systems. I think it gives the game a nice feel, as you really have to work to survive a long time, and the longer you do the more bragging rights you can accumulate amongst other players ;).